Remember Obama’s ‘Narrow Criteria’ for Asylum Seekers?

The hue and cry over the Trump administration’s latest requirements for asylum seekers from Central America and other countries has been practically deafening.

Funny, however, that they never made the same fuss when Obama talked about the country’s “narrow criteria” on the same account.

The new regulations, announced on Monday, would require applicants to first apply for safe haven in one of the countries that they’re traveling through, according to Reuters. This means that if someone’s coming from Honduras or Guatemala, they would have to apply in a “safe third country” like Mexico before applying for asylum in the United States.

Reuters noted that Central American nations weren’t particularly happy with the narrowed criteria.

“Mexican Foreign Minister Marcel Ebrard said the new U.S. rule would not unilaterally convert Mexico into a designated ‘safe third country,’ a status that would oblige asylum-seekers passing through its territory to seek refuge in Mexico, not the United States,” Reuters reported.

“Guatemala, which both sends migrants to the United States and receives Hondurans and Salvadorans passing through, said on Sunday it would postpone President Jimmy Morales’ visit to Washington to discuss Guatemala’s potential designation as a ‘safe third country’ for asylum seekers, stressing it had no plans to sign such an agreement.”

However, even more angry were the Democrats.

“The President is devastating lives, dishonoring our values and departing from decades of precedent and law in his haste to destroy the lifeline of asylum in America,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

Interesting, given that her party’s president, just a few years ago, made it clear that there was a “narrow criteria” for seeking asylum in the United States:

Tom Elliott@tomselliott

Flashback Clip of the Day: In 2014, @BarackObama says crime and poverty do not justify an asylum claim

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“Under U.S. law, we admit a certain number of refugees from all around the world based on some pretty narrow criteria,” the former president said during the 2014 news conference.

“Typically, refugee status is not granted just based on economic need or because a family lives in a bad neighborhood or poverty. It’s typically defined fairly narrowly. You have a state, for example, that was targeting a political activist and they need to get out of the country for fear of prosecution or even death.”

And he added that if an individual or family wanted to apply for asylum, they were better off not making the trek to the United States to do it.

“There may be some narrow circumstances in which there is a humanitarian or refugee status that a family might be eligible for. If that were the case, it would be better for them to apply in-country, rather than take a very dangerous journey all the way up to Texas to make those same claims,” he said.

“But, I think it’s important to recognize that would not necessarily accommodate a large number of additional migrants.”

Contrast that with the current Democrats. In the rush to decriminalize illegal border-crossing — a position favored by many of the presidential candidates on the left — even the “Remain in Mexico” program is condemned, as if asking asylum seekers to stay on the other side of the border while their case is decided is somehow an unbearable burden.

Keep in mind, too, that the bar these migrants have to clear to make an asylum claim is to prove that they have a “credible fear” of returning to their country. If that’s the case, there’s no reason why Mexico wouldn’t qualify. After all, by removing themselves from the situation, they’re removing themselves from that fear.

Yes, Mexico isn’t as well-off economically as the United States. That’s not the point of asylum.

Barack Obama knew that back in 2014. I wonder how many Democrats are going to talk about how he was “departing from decades of precedent and law in his haste to destroy the lifeline of asylum in America.”